The new South Orange municipal website will make its debut on April 1.
Despite the April Fool’s Day launch date, Village officials says the website is no joke.
Village Administrator Barry Lewis made the announcement at the Monday, March 28 meeting of the Village Board of Trustees, saying that the new website “will have a brand new look and feel” and include new features for “ease of access and engagement.”
Village President Sheena Collum thanked Assistant Village Administrator Adam Loehner for his work in steering the project; however, she warned residents against expecting perfection at the launch.
“It’s not going to be perfect on April 1…. Hopefully we’ll iron out the bugs in the first two months.”
In June 2015, the Board of Trustees awarded an $11,500 contract for the redesign of the website to CivicPlus, a company that specializes in creating municipal and governmental websites. At that time, the Village anticipated a January 2016 launch.
The Village awarded the CivicPlus contract after pulling the plug on a contract with MetaRhythm for redesign of the site. At that time, Village Trustee Howard Levison said that the Village wanted to “pursue vendors with proven track records in providing government websites together with ongoing technical support, maintenance and upgrades.”
The Village had paid MetaRhythm $16,800 for its work after awarding the contract in October 2012. Asked if that money had been wasted, Levison said, “Not totally – it provided us with an understanding of how the site should be laid out including structure of our content and its management.”
